"The
theme song is performed by Garbage, as the
band's name perhaps tells you all you want to
know about this thriller."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The World is Not Enough was the nineteenth James
Bond film (twenty-first if you count the non-series
entries). The theme song is performed by Garbage, as
the band's name perhaps tells you all you want to know
about this thriller. Classy 'A' film director Michael
Apted ("Enough"/"Enigma"/"Nell") has James Bond
(Pierce Brosnan) travel to Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea
and Istanbul in a race against time to defuse an
international power struggle over the world's oil
supply.

The first two Brosnan features as Bond, "GoldenEye"
and "Tomorrow Never Dies," grossed a whopping
series-best $353 million and $345 million worldwide,
respectively. Writers Bruce Feirstein, Neal Purvis and
Robert Wade do nothing to stop the Bond commercial
vehicle from marching ahead to the tune of big box
office, as they adapt the story by Neal Purvis &
Robert Wade and keep in all the usual formulaic
essentials but do not seem inspired to bring more to
the table. Nevertheless, for Bond fans this one should
be decent enough as it has the unflappable one back
again to womanizing and doing those easy to watch
impossible stunts in exotic locations to overcome the
baddies.

The fourteen minute sequence in the pre-credits
action, the longest ever in the Bond series, includes
Bond retrieving ransom money from a shady Swiss banker
in Bilbao, Spain and escaping in daredevil fashion
from a bombed hi-rise building; the returned money
exploding in M16 headquarters and killing its owner
oil magnate Sir Robert King (David Calder)--M's dear
friend from Oxford; and then a speedboat chase on the
Thames between Bond and a woman sniper dressed in red
leather (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), that culminates in
an exploding hot air balloon beside the Millennium
Dome.

With her old man's death, the beautiful Elektra King
(Sophie Marceau) inherits the oil empire from her
murdered father and is continuing his project of
building a pipeline through a network of unstable
former Soviet republics. Elektra was kidnapped and
tortured by the anarchist terrorist Renard (Robert
Carlyle), who had a bullet lodged in his head that
can't be removed. He's now a walking dead man, but is
inspired to greater action because he no longer feels
pain and is no longer concerned with dying.

As for Elektra, her dad didn't pay the terrorists
ransom following M's advice and she had to escape on
her own. This has left her embittered. But with the
new pipeline being an important project for the oil
starved world and Elektra still in danger from Renard,
Bond is sent to the Caspian Sea by M to protect
Elektra. What he finds is that Elektra's actions are
suspicious, and he aims to uncover what actually
happened during her kidnapping several years earlier
and if she's still in the clutches of the evil Renard.
Bond explains Elektra's strange behavior as the
effects of the "Stockholm syndrome," as she fell in
love with her captor. That she can't be trusted, puts
the guilt-ridden M in a bad spot as she seeks Elektra
out because she feels responsible for not being of
better help without realizing how much she's hated.

This leads 007 to numerous battles with the
psychopath anti-capitalist terrorist Renard and his
henchmen, as the bald terrorist is using the resources
of King Enterprises to get his hands on a nuclear bomb
and wreak havoc on the hated M16. Bond along the way
must escape from hang-gliding bobsleigh killers
attacking him while he's out skiing, must escape from
an ex-Soviet missile silo that is bombed with him
trapped in it, and the film's money shot of Bond
escaping from helicopters dangling giant chainsaws and
causing explosions while chasing Bond on a narrow
dock.

Bond encounters Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise
Richards), who talks like a Valley girl and looks like
a Playboy bunny while wearing a cut- off T-shirt and
short shorts and we are asked to believe she's a
nuclear physicist working in Azerbaijan in a Soviet
silo as one of the world's leading nuclear experts.
Her name comes in handy for the by now familiar Bond
quip, as when she's in his arms in Istanbul and Bond
remarks: "I've always wanted to have Christmas in
Turkey." Richards was chosen by fans as the worst Bond
girl ever, which might be true unless you got the
subtle deliberate joke the filmmaker was having in
choosing such a crass American to be a leading
scientist.

John Cleese has a heavy-handed comic moment when
he's seen as Q's new bumbling assistant R. Russian
mobster Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) is a
womanizing Soviet capitalist who will make deals with
any side, and provides a few corny comic relief
moments.

The film's obscure title comes from the Latin: Orbis
non sufficit, which is Bond’s family motto as revealed
in the novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.